page_title: Ludwig Wittgenstein
section_title: Engineering at Berlin and Manchester
hierarchical_section_title: Ludwig Wittgenstein / 1906–1913: University / Engineering at Berlin and Manchester
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Berlin-Charlottenburg, Technische Hochschule CharlottenburgEnglish: Technical University of Berlin, Berlin-Charlottenburg
context_page_description: Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.
  From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. During his lifetime he published just one slim book, one article, one book review and a children's dictionary. His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. The first and best-known of this posthumous series is the 1953 book Philosophical Investigations. His teacher, Bertrand Russell, described Wittgenstein as
  "perhaps the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating".
  Born in Vienna into one of Europe's richest families, he inherited a fortune from his father in 1913. He initially made some donations to artists and writers, and then, in a period of severe personal depression after the First World War, he gave away his entire fortune to his brothers and sisters. Three of his four brothers committed suicide, which Wittgenstein had also contemplated.
context_section_description: He began his studies in mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule Berlin in Charlottenburg, Berlin, on 23 October 1906, lodging with the family of professor Dr. Jolles. He attended for three semesters, and was awarded a diploma (Abgangzeugnis) on 5 May 1908.
  During his time at the Institute, Wittgenstein developed an interest in aeronautics. He arrived at the Victoria University of Manchester in the spring of 1908 to study for a doctorate, full of plans for aeronautical projects, including designing and flying his own plane. He conducted research into the behavior of kites in the upper atmosphere, experimenting at a meteorological observation site near Glossop. Specifically, the Royal Meteorological Society researched and investigated the ionization of the upper atmosphere, by suspending instruments on balloons or kites. At Glossop, Wittgenstein worked under Professor of Physics Sir Arthur Schuster.
  He also worked on the design of a propeller with small jet engines on the end of its blades, something he patented in 1911, and which earned him a research studentship from the university in the autumn of 1908. At the time, contemporary propeller designs were not advanced enough to actually put Wittgenstein's ideas into practice, and it would be years before a blade design that could support Wittgenstein's innovative design was created. Wittgenstein's design required air and gas to be forced along the propeller arms to combustion chambers on the end of each blade, where it was then compressed by the centrifugal force exerted by the revolving arms and ignited. Propellers of the time were typically wood, whereas modern blades are made from pressed steel laminates as separate halves, which are then welded together. This gives the blade a hollow interior, and therefore creates an ideal pathway for the air and gas.
  
  Work on the jet-powered propeller proved frustrating for Wittgenstein, who had very little experience working with machinery. Jim Bamber, a British engineer who was his friend and classmate at the time, reported that 
  "when things went wrong, which often occurred, he would throw his arms around, stomp about, and swear volubly in German." 
  According to William Eccles, another friend from that period, Wittgenstein then turned to more theoretical work, focusing on the design of the propeller — a problem that required relatively sophisticated mathematics.
  It was at this time that he became interested in the foundations of mathematics, particularly after reading Bertrand Russell's The Principles of Mathematics (1903), and Gottlob Frege's The Foundations of Arithmetic, vol. 1 (1893) and vol. 2 (1903). Wittgenstein's sister Hermine said he became obsessed with mathematics as a result, and was anyway losing interest in aeronautics. He decided instead that he needed to study logic and the foundations of mathematics, describing himself as in a "constant, indescribable, almost pathological state of agitation." In the summer of 1911 he visited Frege at the University of Jena to show him some philosophy of mathematics and logic he had written, and to ask whether it was worth pursuing. He wrote: 
  "I was shown into Frege's study. Frege was a small, neat man with a pointed beard who bounced around the room as he talked. He absolutely wiped the floor with me, and I felt very depressed; but at the end he said 'You must come again', so I cheered up. I had several discussions with him after that. Frege would never talk about anything but logic and mathematics, if I started on some other subject, he would say something polite and then plunge back into logic and mathematics."
caption: The old Technische Hochschule Berlin in Charlottenburg, Berlin
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